


Frozen Fury

by Iris_Celeno



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gendry goes Baratheon, Gendry has feelings, Post S3, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7247125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Celeno/pseuds/Iris_Celeno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gendry's POV and reaction to the Red Wedding, if rumor had spread that Arya was at the Twins...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frozen Fury

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: T (for language mostly) but very low on the GoT-meter, I suppose.  
> Timeline: After S3/before S4.  
> Gendry has deep feelings for Arya hence the pairing tag. I believe that non-shippers will know what to expect and shippers shouldn't be disappointed even though this is not a romance.  
> No book spoilers, but one Easter Egg and Gendry's evolution should ring a bell.  
> Alternate meta-title: _Ours is the Angst_...you are warned.  
>  Non beta-ed, please forgive any mistake you might find.

Gendry had never _truly_ despaired. 

He didn't expect much to start with. Shit happened and considering his birth, it was bound to happen aplenty in his life. He knew it, took the blows when they came and tried to make do, which had only gotten easier as his modest illusions were plucked like flowers, one by one, from his still naive heart.  
He had been stuck in what people called “despaired” situations. He knew the weird combination of revolt and surrender, panic and utter dread that came into you when you looked at your -painful- death in the eyes. Oh yes, he thought he was as good as gone more than a couple of times. But he had never experienced real desperation, before.

Not when his mother died and he found himself alone in the world.  
Not when his master kicked him out and sold him to the Watch.  
Not when Yoren was dead and the others were about to turn him out to Lochte.  
Not when the bucket was tied to his chest in Harrenhal.  
Not when the Brotherhood sold him.  
Not when Melisandre molested him.  
Not when he was locked in a cell in Dragonstone, waiting for death.  
Not when he was alone on a ridiculously small rowing boat, lost in the middle of the ridiculously wide Narrow Sea, with no bread or water left.

He had never known until an hour ago, in the tavern of a small village near the Saltpans. 

He was just back on land after he'd helped the fishermen who rescued him at sea during their weeks-long campaign. They were decent people. Meeting good people at his worst moments -or rather, “the right person”, since Tywin Lannister couldn't exactly be deemed “good”- had been the sole but constant silver lining in his existence. Once more he was glad he had a trade since he could repay his saviors by repairing their fishing material in the boat's makeshift forge, whenever he didn't give them a hand for the tasks requiring physical strength.

He'd had lots of time to think, while he was rowing. Enough time to digest what he'd learned about his birth; more time than necessary to conclude that it didn't change anything to his condition of bastard whom no one cared about. No, no one had cared enough to even simply acknowledge his existence. On the opposite, his parentage could only bring more trouble upon him. Now, he knew where he came from. Nothing less, although it could hardly be less; nothing more, although it could never be more. Blood was just blood, whatever the witch pretended, and it was his own flowing in his veins, whatever the role some useless fat drunkard had played in his conception.  
He'd also had time to decide what to do, were he to find land: Change his trouble-magnet name - he therefore boarded the ship as “Edric Storm”, lay low, and find out where Arya was. Arya, the only person alive who gave a rat's ass about him, along with Davos Seaworth who had saved his life from the red woman. Arya, who had protested when they took him away, despite thinking he'd leave her. That memory, the memory of her, warmed him. He tried not to dwell on it, though, because his reasons still stood and sooner or later, reality would catch up with them. Maybe her brother had won the war by now, maybe she was a lady again and already lost to him anyway. He just needed to ensure that she was well, and let her know he had survived because in spite of everything, she did care. Then he'd see what he'd do with his modest, bastard blacksmith life.

So for his first night back in Westeros, he went to the tavern with the crew, and he didn't need to ask about the war or the Starks. Two stray Frey soldiers were already there and bragging about the Red Wedding.

Betrayed, slaughtered, desecrated. The King in the North slain and his direwolf's head sown on his shoulders, his wife stabbed in the belly so many times that her full womb spilled out of it, his mother's throat slit and her naked body thrown in the river after being exposed for all to see, their bannermen burned in their tents. They had also killed the youngest Stark girl, although the men weren't given time to detail any of the cruelties done to her. 

_It's Arya...of House Stark._

Disgusted, the patrons booted the soldiers out. Thankfully, the latter were already too drunk to protest with more than words; but they still had swords and the fishermen didn't so no one went as far as fighting them for being lower than dirt assholes, or for the ale they took with them on their way out. The discussion went on after they were gone, though, the returned being apprised of the complete situation.

House Stark was no more, indeed. The two other sons had been killed quite some time ago during the sack of Winterfell. There were many rumors about the Red Wedding but the horrifying ends of Robb, Talisa and Catelyn Stark at the feast were confirmed with the exact same details in every single one of them, which meant they were true. No, the youngest daughter wasn't with them, but she was murdered at the Twins all the same. One thing was certain. _She had been spotted there with Sandor Clegane, the Hound_. Then, some said he had delivered the poor thing to the traitorous Boltons, others that he had whacked her himself with an ax. As for the only surviving Stark girl, she was now married to a Lannister, the Imp of all people. What a shame, she was reportedly such a pretty lady. 

_My mother's a lady. And my sister._

__The Lannisters, by the way, were mightier than ever. They were well on their way to win the war of the Kings. The battles had stalled some, indeed, since Stannis Baratheon had gone...North, some said, with his red priestress and his Hand the Onion Knight. But the smallfolk wasn't better for it. Hordes of bandits and highwaymen took advantage of the chaos, especially in the North and the Riverlands. Worse, there were accounts that a sizeable float of Ironmen had left from Pyke, and the coasts lived in fear of raids.  
Did King's Landing care? No, the only thing that seemed to matter there was the wedding. King Joffrey was to marry Renly Baratheon's widow in a fortnight. She was reputed a generous and kind lady, they said she regularly visited the poor, so maybe she'd make her husband take more of an interest in his people's fate._ _

_Joffrey is a liar._

__Gendry drank his ale, mechanically, listening to the words and registering them when the names meant something to him, yet he was unable to react. He had his hammer on him so in theory, he could have attacked the two soldiers. In reality, he was unable to want, to think or to feel. He knew he should be sick to his stomach, but it was as if his mind had left his body. Although his beverage tasted like bile and blood now, he was too numb to stop sipping it._ _

__They were still talking, around him, and the conversation rolled on other people he knew._ _

__Thankfully for the weak, there was the Brotherhood without Banners. They took down the lowlives and pillagers and stray soldiers who raped and stole and killed. Some of the patrons wished them on the Frey bastards who had just left. There was a red priest with the Brotherhood, though. The fishermen weren't keen on R'hllor, they were well traveled so they had heard about the sacrifices. And rumor already had it that Stannis Baratheon's witch had burned people at the stake in Dragonstone._ _

__Gendry's cup was empty, and he didn't ask for another. Acting normal yet in a complete blur, nodding to the captain who had paid for his ale, he went out and walked. He walked, walked, and walked; walked one foot in front of the other, walked right in front of him. He didn't know for how long, but he walked until he couldn't anymore, because he was at the far end of the docks where land stopped, and he looked blindly into the dark night._ _

__He could see nothing but images of her, passing in front of his eyes._ _

_Arya._

His legs didn't carry him any longer and he fell on his knees, unable to breathe. Finally, he knew what true despair was. It wasn't a simple loss of all hope, it was being dead inside. Empty. Horribly, dreadfully empty of any feeling, any emotion, any semblance of being. 

He was a baseborn, lowly bastard, so he was fair game. But Arya? It wasn't supposed to happen to her. Because she was a lady and ladies didn't die like this. And of all ladies, of all people, it _shouldn't_ have happened to _her_. Because she was strong and fierce and tough and so brave and it was just too bloody unfair.  
He realized he had always believed, deep down, that she'd survive it all. Because she _fucking_ deserved it. If she made it maybe, just maybe, this crapsack world he lived in wasn't entirely rotten. Maybe sometimes, good things happened to good people, maybe some good deeds were rewarded. Maybe there was a semblance of justice. This belief had been his hope. She had embodied his hope. 

But there was nothing good in this world, nothing noble, nothing sacred. 

She had been all that, and now she was no more. 

Every memory came back to him, every single one now a dead-end. Every gaze, there would be no more, every word, there would be no more...no more, not, ever. 

As realization hit him, as awful memories of Harrenhal were awakened, as dreadful questions began to whirl in his mind along with it all, _what did they do to her, how did they kill her, did she suffer, how much did she suffer, did they rape her, how many raped her, did they desacrate her like they did to her brother, is she rotting in the river like her mother, did they break her soul as well as her body, did she beg for her life, did she call out for her father, for her brother Jon, did she call out for_ me _as they hurt her_ , pain preyed over him, powerful and so intense that it was physically unbearable. When he found himself wishing that the Hound had indeed whacked her with an ax just so that her death was fast and relatively painless, _isn't that fucking twisted, isn't that fucking mad_ , he bent under his grief, and he broke. He lurched, the palms of his hands pushing against the ground in an attempt to support himself, blood and bile and ale rioting in his stomach, mounting in his throat, the foul taste spreading in his mouth. 

It didn't matter that they took him away from her first. He had failed her all the same. He should have fought harder, he should have died trying, he shouldn't have tried to make do. How come he did not understand how essential, how _vital_ she was to him? How could he imagine that, when push came to shove, he would ever be able to leave her?  
But he had been foolish, he had been blind. It was only the depth of his pain, of his loss, that opened his eyes...now, once it was too late, once she was gone. Now, when he was only left wondering how a world without her could exist; how he could exist without her _somewhere_ in it, even out of his reach. 

There was only one answer. It couldn't, shouldn't. He couldn't, wouldn't. 

Why did he paddle his way through the Narrow Sea? Why did he even follow Davos out of his cell? He'd be long consumed in the flames by now, blissfully unaware of her death. For him, she'd have lived forever. 

He stared at the green-black sea, dark as a bottomless pit, smelling of salt and rocks and tears. It beckoned him. If Arya didn't make it then there was no hope, no, there _shouldn't_ be any hope for the likes of him. There was never, would never be, anything or anyone for him, anywhere or anyone he could belong to. And wouldn't it be ironic, a Waters dead in his namesake, having survived the open sea to drown in the muddy depths of the harbor. 

At that very moment, he heard the wolf howling. A long, powerful, furious cry. 

_Ours is the fury._

The wolf, and that damn blood of _his_ that caused him so much pain and trouble, saved him. 

This time, anger wasn't one of those violent but brief hot storms that seized him ever so often, like when they killed Yoren. It was a feeling as cold as ice, dull and silent yet sharp and imperious, like the slow but unstoppable flow of a river in winter. _She_ was winter, and he called her to him, into him. Frozen fury seeped deep inside, through his entire being, permeating every cell of his body, every thought in his brain, every fiber of his heart, replacing his now dead soul. As long as this anger, as long as this cold existed inside him...there, at least, she wouldn't be completely gone. 

The wolf howled again, and this time it sounded dangerous. 

Gendry closed his eyes, had a last vision of her mischievously smiling at him near a riverbank, _Gendry's an armorer's apprentice_ , of her stomping her foot, _You won't call me Milady_ , a flash of her grey gaze boring into his at Harrenhal, another of her teary eyes, _I can be your family_. 

Then, he heard drunken voices, made out the lyrics of a song about rain and a fallen House. 

*** 

On the next morning, the two Frey soldiers were found dead near the docks, skull and bones broken and bloody as if they'd been stampeded by a furious stag, their limbs already half-devored by a wolf. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one a couple of years ago, during the hiatus between S3 and S4. I apologize for the flowery angst fest and the rusty writing (it had been years since I finished even a one-shot). Gendry is probably more of a realist and a survivor than portrayed here but feelings got to me.  
> With S6 drawing to a close and our boy still rowing, I thought what the hell, let's post it.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
